


A Glass Can Only Spill What It Contains

by PazithiGallifreya



Series: Inquisitor Arvedui Adaar [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Qunari, Tal-Vashoth, Vashoth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-10 22:35:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11701254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PazithiGallifreya/pseuds/PazithiGallifreya
Summary: "Like peacocks wandering the walkways of the zooWho have twice the autonomy the giraffes and the tigers doSaying, 'No one can stop me! No one can stop me! No one clips my claws!Now everyone watch me! Everyone watch me scale these outside walls!'"(A conversation between The Iron Bull, Tal-Vashoth, and Arvedui Adaar, Vashoth.)





	A Glass Can Only Spill What It Contains

A dull thud. And another. And another. A shout like a roar. _He's at it again_ , thought Arvedui.  _That makes five_ _days now_. He's going to run out of Chargers at this rate. He walked over to his balcony and leaned over. The Iron Bull had conscripted Rocky this time. The dwarf's reach was rather lower than Skinner or Dalish, who had been set to the task the day before, but The Iron Bull didn't seem displeased at the result.

The bruises across his torso were multi-layered at this point. Some were fresh and dark purple, others were older and going through a series of different hues. Bull was beginning to look like a toddler's finger-painting and Arvedui was beginning to get worried.

He stood up and made his way downstairs and through the crowded main hall of Skyhold, dodging the well-wishers and ambitious would-be coattail-riders yammering and calling out "Inquisitor!" in his wake.

Arvedui had thought they'd put the matter to rest after the assassins “delivered” their message. _Tal Va-fucking-shoth!_ At the time, it seemed like Bull had felt his life was over in some sense. In a way, it had been, perhaps, but what Arvedui saw, that Bull apparently did not, was that Bull had lived his life outside of the Qun for years already. His “handlers” back in Par Vollen had also clearly seen it. The entire “alliance” had felt like a set-up from the beginning, and afterward, upon reflection, Arvedui was convinced of it. They’d wanted to know if Hissrad was still Hissrad. But Hissrad had become The Iron Bull already, he just hadn't accepted it. 

But Arvedui thought he'd managed to get him to see that he still had a place with the Inquisition, at the very least. Admittedly, Avedui knew little of life under the Qun. His grandfather had given a heavily edited account of it, and the philosophical writing that spent most of its time in the valley collecting dust on shelves or propping up wobbly furniture was as inexplicable and foreign to him as Tevinter. His grandfather had suffered. So had Bull, although Arvedui doubted he saw it that way himself. Arvedui knew something about losing one's home, though.

Nearly a month had passed with little indication that Bull was still struggling with what had happened on the Storm Coast, but over the last week, his mood had suddenly changed for the worse. He was more restless and short-tempered. Bull kept trying to work it out in the sparring yard, they'd go off somewhere and kill something; Arvedui had taken him out to the Emerald Graves just recently and they'd killed a high dragon and come back celebrating. Bull had acted like everything was fine and settled and done with. The Iron Bull had his own way of dealing with shit, and generally that was fine, but it seemed to be failing him now. 

And clearly, everything was not fine and settled and done with. And whatever the peculiar pain-driven ceremony he was repeating these days had accomplished for him in the past, it was clearly inadequate now.

Arvedui thought back to an early conversation he'd had with the Iron Bull just after they'd arrived at Haven. He was speaking in general terms about the order of Qunari society, about the role of the Tamassrans. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, he mentioned that he'd once lost his shit in Seheron and had gone to these people and allowed them to... how had he said it? _Re-write his mind._

Arvedui stopped a few feet away, as Rocky took another hard swipe at Bull with the heavy wooden staff. Bull grunted at the impact. Rocky stepped back as he saw the Inqusitor approach and Bull turned around, seemingly startled at Arvedui's arrival, but recovering quickly.

"Hey, boss."

How does one re-write a mind? Sleep deprivation, he'd said. Herbs, otherwise not specified. Unrelenting pressure until something broke, like a bone to be re-set. _"We're more fragile than we like to think."_

"Morning, Bull."

Arvedui's gaze swept over Bull, his bruises even more colorful up close than they'd been from the balcony.

"I don't suppose you'd let me do something about that?"

Bull laughed, the sound bouncing off the stone walls surrounding them. "Nah, kind of defeats the purpose."

Arvedui cocked his head to the side and looked over him further, the question dying on his lips. _What purpose?,_ he'd been just on the cusp of asking. There were no Tamassrans in the Inquisition. Arvedui would not let them anywhere near any of his people, even if there had been. Not even Bull. Especially not Bull. But Bull had never been allowed to deal with anything in any other way. Submit and be broken. Submit and be remade. Submit or be destroyed, your body and mind poisoned until you were a mindless beast put to the plow, with a handler nearby to wipe your ass for you.

Bull stared right back at Arvedui, a mild challenge in his stance, as if daring him to criticize what he was doing. Arvedui wasn't afraid of him, but he wasn't quite sure how to even begin a conversation that he felt was sorely needed. One that will piss Bull off, no doubt.

Rocky glanced at Arvedui, and shrugged in a vague manner, then looked over at Bull, waiting for some indication of what was expected of him, before turning back to the Inquisitor. Arvedui nodded at him, silently dismissing Rocky.

"What do you need, boss?"

"Why don't we go sit somewhere, have a drink."

Bull's eyes narrowed, his training seeing through Arvedui's motives plainly (although Arvedui didn’t give a damn at the moment). "...right."

Sometimes pain is unavoidable, even necessary. That didn't mean Arvedui had ever failed to do whatever he could to ease the suffering of those around him. He'd been kicked by more than one cow or ewe while trying to help her deliver a calf or lamb. He'd been bitten by one of the neighbor's young children once, while setting a broken bone. It was just a hazard of the profession, when you got down to it. 

Arvedui turned and walked toward the Herald's Rest, blinking at the dim interior lighting as his eyes adjusted. It was still mid-morning and the place was empty. He leaned over the bar, peering into the back room for Cabot, but the dwarf was nowhere to be found. He was probably still asleep. Shrugging, Arvedui slipped behind the bar and nosed around until he found a couple of reasonably clean looking mugs and filled them at a promising looking barrel. He grabbed a plate with half a cheese wheel and threw a loaf of day-old bread on top and passed an impatient looking Bull as he headed toward a table in the back with his arms full.

Cole was probably up on the third floor and if he listened hard enough, he might be able to hear Sera snoring above them, but Arvedui was reasonably sure they would not be disturbed. Bull settled himself into the opposite seat and Arvedui shoved the ale across to him, then pulled a dagger from his belt and carved a chunk of cheese and somewhat stale bread for himself, leaving the dagger impaled in the cheese for his companion. It wasn't much of a brunch, but Arvedui had made do with far worse.

Bull leaned back, took one long gulp from the mug of ale, and stretched his bad leg out beside the table. 

A waiting game, then. Arvedui munched on his snack, drank his ale, and sat in silence, occasionally glancing out the window at a shout or laughter from the sparring yard. He could hear Blackwall’s rough voice as he pushed some recent recruits through the usual drills with the occasional criticism or suggestion from Cassandra cutting in.

It was rare for things to be this peaceful. Almost normal, even. After the drama in Orlais and the disaster at Adamant, Corypheus had retreated. They'd cleaned out several regions of his Venatori and red Templar lackeys and if Arvedui closed his eyes and tried hard enough, he could almost pretend the world was back to normal. They'd been blessed with the time to take a breath, but he knew it wouldn't last. Corypheus was still out there, somewhere. Leliana's people were out there as well, watching, listening, waiting. He'd reappear sooner or later.

Bull had eaten his way through most of the bread and cheese, whatever was troubling him clearly had not adversely affected his appetite, at least.

"Did I ever tell you about the time I nearly fell down a ravine chasing after a lamb?”

Bull blinked at him, finally surprised for once. He was rarely wrong-footed, but his expression was almost comical. Arvedui failed to suppress his smile, having finally managed to surprise Bull after months of, apparently, being entirely predictable.

“A storm had come up suddenly, we’d get them in the spring sometimes, just out of the blue. But a bolt of lightning struck a tree nearby and, well, sheep are what they are. The whole flock did a runner. They generally stay together, doesn’t take too long to just follow the trampled grass and round them all up. But this was a late lamb, bit smaller than the rest, and it got left behind and separated from its mother. Took me three hours to track it down, and somehow the blasted thing had fallen off into this ravine. It landed on an outcrop of rock just a few feet down, though.”

Arvedui pulled another piece of bread off the platter and chewed it a bit. Bull was clearly less than enthralled with his tale, but he pushed on.

“The damn thing was screaming its head off, bleating over the sound of the rain for its mother. A ewe always knows her own lamb, you see. They’re not as stupid as people think, sheep. They know each other, every animal in the flock has its friends, its rivals... they have their own ideas about things. They’ll follow you, if they trust you. If they know you. They’ll run from a stranger, though.”

Bull drained the rest of his mug and wiped the foam off his lips with the back of his hand. “Is there a point to this fascinating tale? Because if you’re thinking of comparing me to a lost lamb, I may just have to assume you’ve lost your damned mind completely.”

Arvedui took a sip from his own mug, which was still half full. “Hardly. Although the difference between a bull and a ram is mostly a matter of size, for what it’s worth. But my point is that I left a flock of a hundred sheep to retrieve this one pathetic little lamb. It was pissing down wet and the rocks were slippery as hell. If I’d fallen it would have been a good eighty feet before I landed on solid rock. But I climbed down there and got the damned thing. Do you know why?”

“Because you’re an idiot?”

“Possibly. But any other shepherd in the valley would have done the same thing. We’d have done the same for a lost calf or a lost child or a lost neighbor. _Do you know why?_ ”

“Because you’re all idiots, then.”

Arvedui rolled his eyes and drained the rest of his mug. Bull wasn’t stupid and probably knew exactly what Arvedui was talking about, but he wasn’t going to acknowledge it, apparently. Was it even worth trying? He had to. “One lamb is important. It isn’t expendable just because it is small. None of them are expendable. If you have no lambs, you have no flock. If you have no ewes, you have no flock. If you have no ram, you have no flock. And if you have no flock, you starve. A shepherd has a duty, do you understand _that_ at least? You can’t save every single one, every single time. But the effort _matters._ ” Arvedui sighed and rubbed at his eyes. It was too early in the day for this shit, really.  

Bull leaned further back in his chair, crossing his hands behind his head. His expression was unreadable, just as he no doubt intended. It wasn’t like Arvedui was unaware of Bull’s opinions. He thought his boss was naive and soft in the head, overly sentimental and just possibly a bit cracked. He might not even be entirely wrong, but it made it difficult for Arvedui to talk to him, sometimes. _But the effort matters_ , he thought.

Bull reached forward and pulled Arvedui’s dagger out of the cheese block and held it up, turning it in the morning sunlight filtering in through the dingy window nearby. “I’m not about to fall off a cliff, Boss. Sometimes I just have to deal with shit, y’know?”

“Are you? Dealing with shit? Because you’ve been out there for a solid week now, taunting your Chargers into hitting you. Maybe that worked in the past, maybe it’s doing something now, but you’re starting to look like you’ve been trampled by a bronto. Repeatedly. And don’t think I haven’t noticed how your men look at you. You haven’t seen how Krem looks when you’re walking away from him. He’s worried. _I’m_ worried.”

Bull set the dagger on the table gently, the blade pointing at Arvedui like an accusation. “I’m not one of your green recruits wetting the bed and crying for mother after a battle.”

“I didn’t say you were. But you’ve dealt with shit in the past under the Qun. You’re not Qunari anymore. We don’t have Tamassrans here. But that doesn’t mean you’re alone.”

Arvedui leaned over and picked up his dagger, wiping the blade on a handkerchief and putting it back in the hilt on his belt. He braced one hand on the table. “I can’t re-write your head for you, Bull. And I don’t think you can do it for yourself. You’re going to have to find another way. But you don’t have to do it on your own, if you don’t want to. Just... think about it. That’s all I’m asking.”

Arvedui walked away from The Iron Bull and opened the door of the tavern, squinting at the bright sunlight. 

“You don’t know what you’re asking, Boss. You don’t have any clue what I could become.”

Arvedui paused and turned back around, shutting the door behind him. “You’re afraid of losing control.”

Bull huffed and stood, his chair scraping loudly across the floor. He was genuinely irritated now, that much was clear. Cole was hovering somewhere nearby. Arvedui could feel him, like a slight pressure against his consciousness, a ripple in the Veil.

“You don’t know what it was like on Seheron. You don’t know what I saw every damned day. You think because the Vashoth you grew up with were a bunch of soft-headed farmers, that it’s like that everywhere. It’s not.”

“And _you_ think that just because the Tal-Vashoth you fought on Seheron were a pack of violent brutes, that it’s like _that_ everywhere. It’s not, Bull. _It’s not_. It doesn’t _have_ to be that way. Just because you have a pair of horns on your head doesn’t mean it’s your destiny to become an animal. You’re right - I don’t know what Seheron was like. And I don’t know what living under the Qun was like, although the scars my grandfather bore both inside and out, to the end of his days, were testament enough. Maybe you ought to see this as an opportunity instead of a curse. You can make your own destiny, now. You don’t need a Tamassran to tell you who you are. You aren’t Hissrad anymore, maybe you never really were. Maybe you’ve _always_ been the Iron Bull. That’s not a bad thing!” 

Bull stepped forward, his entire body tensing up. Arvedui was certain Bull was going to strike him. He stood still in front of the door with his hands at his sides. _Let him, if that’s what he needs_. Bull stopped just inches in front of Arvedui. They were the same height, but Bull was nearly twice as broad and a good eighty pounds heavier, if not more. Bull gripped him by the shoulders, his fingers digging into the flesh. Arvedui drew in a deep breath and let it out again, his hands still hanging limply at his sides. He had not come looking for a fight, whatever Bull might have thought. 

Bull sneered, his upper lip curling to reveal a hint of teeth. “You’re just going to let me do whatever the hell I want, is that it? What if I hit you?”

Arvedui met Bull’s hard gaze. Part of his mind wondered when someone would wander in and interrupt this little party. Sera would wake up sooner or later. “I suspect it will hurt if you do.”

The Iron Bull stared at him for several long moments, dense thoughts flickering behind his eye that Arvedui could not read. He broke away from Arvedui’s unblinking gaze and stared at something off to the side, his fingers still twitching in their grip on Arvedui’s skin. Arvedui continued to breath deeply, evenly, waiting on him.

A sharp crack rang out as the Iron Bull’s skull impacted against Arvedui’s. It was half-hearted, as Bull’s standards go, but stars danced before Arvedui’s eyes and he felt a trickle of blood running from his nose down his lip. He forced himself to open his tear-streaming eyes and regain his balance. 

The Iron Bull released his grip and stepped backward. He turned slightly, then punched the doorframe beside Arvedui’s head. Arvedui heard the wood crack under his knuckles but managed not to flinch.

“Aren’t you even going to defend yourself? What the hell is wrong with you?”

Arvedui licked at the blood on his lips and sniffed futilely. “Are you going to kill me, then?”

“What if I am?”

“Then I suggest you get on with it.”

Bull threw his hands up, mumbling something under his breath angrily. Arvedui fished out his handkerchief again and wiped the blood off his face. “You’re not going to kill me, Bull, because you’re not a mindless animal. And neither am I.” A creaking of boards under a pair of feet above them signaled the rising of Sera and the end of whatever this meeting was. 

“I have a few things to deal with this morning, but you know where to find me. You might want to let Krem know you aren’t actually losing your marbles, though.” 

Arvedui turned and left the tavern, ignoring the curious glances thrown his way. His nose was still dripping blood and he probably had two black eyes. He knew could undo the damage in moments, just a slight twist of the Fade would stem the blood and elfroot tincture would take care of the bruising. He left it, though, letting himself feel the soreness for the rest of the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> [mewithoutYou - A Glass Can Only Spill What It Contains](https://youtu.be/SMd35tfCiXQ)
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> [A bit of explanation of Bull & Arvedui's relationship in this story](http://pazithigallifreya.tumblr.com/post/163779728867/iron-bull-madness-tal-vashoth)


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